Seahawks’ two-point conversions still on Rams’ mind at league meeting

PHOENIX — As Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald finished up an answer at the end of his half-hour session with media at the league meetings here Monday morning, one more question emerged from the back of the pack.

“What did you think of the two-point play?” the questioner asked.

Macdonald turned to see who was asking the question — Rams coach Sean McVay, who was leaving the room after finishing his interviews.

After a brief pause, Macdonald laughed and responded: “That’s still on the table?”

It was a joking reference to Zach Charbonnet’s famous “Zach-ward pass” play that forced a tie when the Seahawks and Rams played last December in a game Seattle won 38-37 in overtime, a critical victory in clinching the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoffs.

That was an apparent reference to the Rams making two proposals for rules changes resulting from that play, which was initially ruled an incomplete pass with the two teams lining up for the ensuing kickoff before a replay was initiated. That resulted in the call being overturned and Charbonnet credited with a fumble recovery and a run into the end zone and a successful two-point play that tied the game at 30 with 6:23 remaining.

The Rams had initially proposed a 40-second time limit for the initiation of a replay review — it was estimated that roughly 100 seconds lapsed between the end of the play and when the replay was initiated.

The Rams also proposed that the deflected backward pass on a two-point play would be treated similarly as a fumble on fourth-down and could only be advanced by the player who fumbled it. That would have negated Charbonnet’s conversion.

Both proposals were withdrawn and are not being considered during the meetings here by the competition committee.

After Macdonald made his comment, McVay walked by and gave a friendly pat to Macdonald’s back as he headed out of the room.

Macdonald said it was the first interaction the two have had here, saying they hadn’t talked since the end of the season (the Rams are among teams that typically do not send coaches to the NFL scouting combine, which was held late last month in Indianapolis).

While the rule-change proposals are off the table, the trio of games the Rams and Seahawks played last season will only ratchet up the hype for the rematches in 2026 when each team will again be considered as Super Bowl favorites.

Each game last year went down to the final seconds — a 21-19 Rams win in L.A. and the Seahawks’ 38-37 victory in overtime in the regular season and a 31-27 win in the NFC title game.

Earlier during his media session, Macdonald was asked about the games with the Rams last season and how the team that gained the most yards lost each game.

The Seahawks outgained the Rams 414-249 in the loss in L.A., while the Rams outgained Seattle 581-415 in December and 479-396 in the conference title game.

“I think even if you go back a couple years before that it almost felt like whoever played better on each side of the ball ended up losing the game,” Macdonald said. “So it’s kind of an interesting back and forth between us.

“But is just shows kind of like an iron sharpening iron thing, like great competition forces you to be your best, forces us to kind stay ahead of our curve. Definitely going to look and see how we game planned, how we prepared for them compared to the rest of some of the other teams. So I think it just brings out the best in both of us, which is great.”